Diversity and Ethics

Diversity Diversity in management is a major task. There are many aspects related to diversity, such as: culture, religion, and gender, just to name a few. It is important to remember that different people have different values and morals. Treating each person as an individual may be a difficult task for some managers. For managers who hire, hiring people with different backgrounds can enhance the team’s performance by introducing different perspectives and ideas. The planning process includes identifying how to integrate these ‘different’ people into the team. Ensuring the necessary resources are available to train and develop personnel based on their experience and education is a big part of organizing. Leading a team of diverse individuals can be quite interesting. Each person must be empowered and motivated to come to work and perform at his or her best. Controlling and monitoring each individual’s performance and how each person relates to others is mandatory for the team to be cohesive. Starbucks has made diversity a major priority. According to Starbucks’ Corporate Social Responsibility Report, diversity is one of Starbucks’ Guiding Principles. â€Å"At Starbucks, we embrace diversity as an essential component in the way we do business. † (Starbucks, 2009). Diversity is even one of Starbucks’ core values in their Standards of Business Conduct. Ethics According to Bateman and Snell (2009), ethics is defined as â€Å"the system of rules that governs the ordering of values. † The four functions of management are vital to an organization’s ethical behavior. Management has a responsibility, not only to the consumers, but also to the staff to lead by example and behave in an ethical manner. Starbucks understands the importance of ethics. For the third year in a row, Starbucks has been named one of the world’s most ethical companies by Ethisphere Magazine (Starbucks, 2009). Starbucks’ Standards of Business Conduct empowers and motivates their employees to make ethical decisions by providing a framework to be followed if they have any doubts. Starbucks also offers their support to their employees in doing the right thing and conducting business with integrity. References Bateman, T. , & Snell, S. A. (2009). Management: Leading and collaborating in the competitive world (8th ed. ). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Starbucks. (2009). Starbucks Social Corporate Responsibility Report. Retrieved from http://www. starbucks. com/aboutus/csrreport/csr. htm Starbucks. (2009). Business Ethics and Compliance. Retrieved from http://www. starbucks. com/aboutus/SoBC_FY09_eng. pdf